Chiang Mai Adventures

(Katherine) Our journey to Chiang Mai was filled with mishaps that challenged our patience and faith in our transportation decisions.  Our ferry out of Koh Phangan was 3 hours late, yet we almost didn’t get on the boat because we never knew our voucher wasn’t a real ticket. Our overnight train from Chumphun to Bangkok was another 3 hours late, and we had an unwelcome guest who liked to lounge near our seats (a cockroach).  We arrived in Bangkok on no sleep only to discover our train to Chiang Mai had been cancelled due to flooding.  Luckily, there was a bus leaving an hour later…though it was double the price of our original train ticket.  I think we were a bit too optimistic when booking all of these consecutive travel plans, but we did finally land safe and sound in Chiang Mai on the evening of the 26th.  We checked into The Rainforest Boutique Hotel and elected to enjoy some room service and an early bedtime rather than explore our new city.


 The next morning, Robert had booked us a class with the highest recommended Thai cooking school in Chiang Mai on Trip Advisor, Siam Rice Cooking School.  Our instructor, Pot, picked us up at the hotel and also picked up two other students, Christine from Vancouver and Nancy from San Jose (small world!)  Pot has a great laugh and a very dry sense of humor.  He took us to a market where he showed us all of the key ingredients for Thai cooking and got a real kick out of our collective ignorance for identifying each item.  He purchased all of the necessary supplies and took us back to his house/school.  We were then given menus where we were each able to select 6 dishes which we would be taught how to prepare.  Robert and I each chose different options so we would have the knowledge of 12 dishes between us. 

 The classes consisted in a fair amount of instruction, a lot of laughing, and a huge amount of eating.  We learned how to use a mortar and pestle to make curries, and how to make a huge flame in our frying pan for dramatic effect.  Our dishes consisted of appetizers, soups, entrees and desserts, and Robert made a beer run so we could all properly enjoy eating our meals in between the cooking lessons.  We’re hoping that our newfound cooking skills might help make us more appealing houseguests for when we return to the states and are homeless!

After the lesson, we got dropped off in the old section of town located within a large stone wall.  This is where a majority of the temples are located, and they are plentiful and varied in size.  We stopped by one just in time to witness the monks beginning their evening prayer and chanting.  We went by another that was enormous, and looked a bit like a preview for what we might see in Anchor Wat.  We also decided to stop for dinner in this part of town, and after the abundance of Thai food earlier that day, pizza was a welcome change of pace.

 The next morning we had an early pick up to take us out of town to an Elephant Camp where you volunteer (pay money) to feed, ride and bathe rescued elephants. They spent a great deal of time giving us a history of the camp itself and where they find most of their elephants - performance shows and street begging.  Their goal is to keep elephant families together and to keep them happy and well cared for.  Once we all changed into lovely denim uniforms, we went out to start bonding with the elephants by feeding them bananas and sugar cane.  The trainers had a baby elephant give me a big kiss on my cheek, which was both adorable and disgusting at the same time due to some serious banana breath.  We then had a lesson on how to mount an elephant bareback, and then learned how to ride the elephants by barking four commands:  pai (forward), how (stop), quay (turn), and no-long (sit down).  We were ready to go!

 Robert and I were assigned Mae Dom, the largest elephant in our group.  She was a 7 year old rescue from an elephant show, and apparently had an insatiable appetite for anything green and leafy.  Robert rode in front and I was at the back, so he had to deal with barking out constant commands to get her to stop munching on all of the shrubbery along the trail.  It actually got to be pretty hilarious, the number of stops she wanted to make.  Once we got to the top of the hill they let her graze for quite a while, and we chuckled as we watched another elephant use a tree as a back and bum scratcher for about 15 minutes. 

 We got back on Mae Dom and I took the driver’s seat while Robert uncomfortably fidgeted in the back.  I personally felt very connected to Mae Dom and that she took orders very well, and that this amazing animal and I understood one another.  Robert, on the other hand, was starting to lose his patience with his elephant experience.  Things only went downhill for him when we moved to the last part of the camp….the elephant bathing.  We were instructed to remove our shoes and get into a muddy pond with these huge creatures and give them a bath to say “thank you” for the ride.  Let’s just say that the elephants become very comfortable when they are in the water, and really let loose, so to speak.  They have people with pails trying to collect the “floaters” but all the while your feet are sinking many inches down into a combination of mud and elephant poop under the murky water.  You really have to try and mentally cut off the sensation under your toes and focus on the task at hand, washing your elephant, in order to not get completely grossed out.  Robert lasted about 5 minutes before he literally threw in the towel - although in his defense he had picked up the same eye infection I had earlier and needed to keep his eye clean (thank goodness we still had medicine!)  I stayed with Mae Dom and even climbed up on her back to scrub her head until it was finally time to ride her out of the pond.  The shower that ensued moments later would probably have to rank with the top 5 showers I have ever taken in my life…or at least the 5 most necessary!

After a hard day of work at elephant camp, we decided that we deserved a nice dinner out and ventured down to the river to find a restaurant called Riverside Pub and Restaurant.  This place has been around forever and offers a huge menu and live music in the bar area.  I would definitely recommend sitting outside where we were lucky enough to enjoy the annual lights festival.  Balloons which carry small baskets of lit candles are launched into the air creating a stream of flickering lights floating up into the sky.  We were very fortunate to be in town this particular week and witness the event.

The morning of the 29th we packed up our bags and  caught a van to our final Chiang Mai activity, Flight of the Gibbons.  This sis a series of zip lines that were set up in the rainforest by a group of New Zealand adventure enthusiasts.  We met a lovely couple from Australia in our group named Andrew and Joanne who became our zip line partners.  Our guides were pretty funny and gave us a quick tutorial on how everything works.  Basically, let them do all of the work (clipping and unclipping on the lines) and you just have to have the nerve to jump off the platform.  You definitely have to fight your natural inclination to NOT leap into thin air, but once you get the hang of it the zip lines are really fun!  We completed at least 16 platforms in total, including double lines where we rode together, vertical drops, and a “superman” line where you’re connected on your back instead of your front.  I could definitely see this as an addictive extreme sport.


It had rained for most of the morning, which seemed like it would make the experience more scary, but if anything it just made our surroundings seem more lush.  After the zip lines, we were dropped off at a waterfall where Robert and Joanne lost interest in the muddy trail, but Andrew and I were determined to trudge all the way to the top.  After a couple hundred vertical steps we got as far as we could go and took victory photos of our summit….just as the rain began to fall again.  We were then whisked off for a delicious lunch back at base camp, and were lucky enough to then negotiate a ride to the airport for our flight to Laos.  After our overly adventurous trek to Chiang Mai, we decided that our departure out of the town was best done via an airplane!